Too pricey?

This was a lovely wine, the proof is it's all gone.  I purchased this bottle of Quintessa's  2016, 'Illumination' Sauvignon Blanc (SB) when I visited the winery back in January.  I can't remember what I paid for it (there was a small inter-winery discount involved), but on Quintessa's website it says this wine retails for $50.00.  And by my reckoning, that's about $20.00 too much.
Wine pricing is a funny old thing.  The average consumer could be forgiven for asking, "Why is this wine priced thus?"  Well, the wine's packaging is a little upscale, it comes in a Rhone-style bottle (how trite) and there is some flashy gold on the label, but packaging alone shouldn't make a significant impact on the retail price of this wine.  The cost of SB grapes is on the rise in the Napa Valley.  In fact, SB is in danger of becoming more scarce, indeed many growers are ripping out this delightful white grape and planting Cabernet Sauvignon in its place.  Having said that, I looked up the average price per ton of SB grapes (Napa County Crop Report) when I started blogging in 2008 and it was $1,905.91.  In 2017 the average cost had risen to $2,012.00.  That's a whopping increase of $106.09 over a 10 year period.  (By no stretch of the imagination is that a significant price hike.)
Yes, I enjoyed this $50.00 SB, it was a beautiful glass of wine; a little heavier of the palate than most SBs, adequate acid, a lovely grapefruit/mandarin orange citrus-y-ness and a lingering finish.  However, I don't think I enjoyed it enough to pay full retail.
Quintessa is a pretty swanky winery, so I believe it is up to the proprietors to maintain some aura of exclusivity.  I'm thinking the folks that can afford to drink Quintessa wines are Cabernet Sauvignon aficionados who aren't necessarily white wine drinkers (I meet people like that all the time), but might be persuaded to buy an overpriced, in my humble estimation, SB.  I am not Quintessa's audience.
Call me cheap, but I'd rather have two bottles of SB from a Napa Valley producer such as Honig or St. Supéry.  Or even better, three bottles (or, perhaps, four if it's on sale) of that old Kiwi stalwart, Kim Crawford.  My little pea-brain just doesn't understand expensive SBs.  I have tasted the Illumination once, I don't need to try it again.

Dopey proposition.

Speaking of TWWIAGE field trips, back in January my coworkers and I went on our annual Recon Day.  Two of the three wineries we visited were repeats, Quintessa and Robert Sinskey, both pleasant wine-tasting experiences.  The other winery we visited was Piazza Del Dotto, hmm.
Piazza is the third winery in the Del Dotto family, proprietor Dave Del Dotto made a small fortune in the infomercial business and it was that small fortune that allowed Mr. Del Dotto to pursue his dream of going into the wine business.  And he did, but not without some controversy.
Piazza Del Dotto was originally going to be called Ca' Nani Winery which is Italian, apparently, for 'house of dwarfs' (in reference to an Italian folklore story related to Mr. Infomercial by his grandmother).  Del Dotto's daughter, Desirée, was quoted in a 2013 magazine article about the family's new venture as saying, "We do plan on having some little people working there."  Well, you can imagine how that was received in politically-correct California.  By 2015 the plans for the dwarf-manned winery had been scrapped.
It was interesting to watch the new winery take shape.  I remember that one the first features to be completed was the entranceway on Highway 29, resplendent with dwarf-topped pillars.  Varietal wines had already been released with different short-limbed characters on the labels; jovial, wine-loving characters, but dwarfs just the same.  You just can't make this stuff up.
On our visit to the winery, when I questioned our young host about a vague recollection I had of drinking a Sauvignon blanc with a dwarf-adorned label he totally denied it.  Sore point, perhaps?  I didn't think too much more about it, until I remembered where I had tasted the wine.  A few days later, taking a little detour with Vinodog 2, I called on a neighbour and asked if they had any bottles of Del Dotto Sauvignon blanc left.  "Sure," my neighbour said, "let me get you one."  Titter, titter.
Whilst it is in part true that the Napa Valley is rapidly in danger of becoming a theme park, I, for one, am not ready for it to become Disneyland just yet.